Ice Cream

While it was summer outside, I was without the summer-time mojo inside. I tried to set up situations where I wouldnt score as good in one round in order to set myself up for the following round. But I was unsuccessful and my body rejected the ice cream.

Igel Argern

During the beginning of the game I thought that I was doing poorly. My poor green hedgehogs were suffering at the bottoms of many piles of other hedgehogs. In the picture, you can see that Marty (purple) and Adam (blue) were vying for an early lead. Marty was caught using drugs when his hedgehog crossed the finish line first.

Then in the middle game, my hedgehogs were able to escape from the pack and move towards the goal. Marty’s hedgehogs kept trying to jump apon my poor hedgehogs but it was not enough to make it clear that I was in position to win. Fortunately, no one was able to stop me and I won!

Seafarers of Catan: 5-6 Player Expansion

For the last game of the night, Roxana suggested Settlers and I jumped at the chance. Ed heard that were we going to play and he bolted to the other room. After an initial problem with selecting the wrong scenario, we were able to start the game.

Jon was clearly out in first place. I was unable to escape the main island but was lucky enough to draw 3 victory point cards. We were pretty viscous in deciding where to place the robber and Rhonda (a new player) was sitting quietly and avoiding confrontation. Fortunately, Jon was not able to build his last victory point in time and I was able to sneakily claim the win.

Candamir: The First Settlers

Ed received another free Mayfair game to review and I jumped at the chance to try it out. I am glad that I was able to try it before buying it because given the name I would have bought it sight unseen. I like settlers games. They are not perfect because they involve a dice. However, you can overcome the randomness of dice rolls by picking your initial sites and by making advantageous trades during the game.

Unfortunately, even though this game has the settlers name to it, it is not a settlers game! Instead, it is a solo adventure game much like Die Rückkehr der Helden. During the game, you explore the board by turning up movement cards. These cards show where you can move for free, where you can move and find resources, and where you must successfully adventure to move. When you finally make it to your selected spot on the board, you uncover a chit that gives you resources and you teleport back to the start city. When you are in the start city and not adventuring, you can turn in resources for victory points.

And that is pretty much it. The only negative thing that you can do to other people is drink a potion that can reduce everyone’s hit points by one (which is used as the maximum movement. You can spend a turn healing it). We rarely traded in this game. And this game took a long time to play (2:30 with rules explination).

I spent much of the game increasing my statistics instead of getting victory points. It was a race between Ed and Jon winning the game. At least I was 1 victory point behind them when the game ended.

Can’t Stop

To finish out the night, I play this light and quick dice fest. Unfortunately, the dice hated me tonight and I was not able to lock out any column. You can see how poorly green is doing!

Around the World in 80 Days

Tonight was a Joncon since Ed was busy this night. We started out by playing a new game that Jon brought back from Boeblingen. You travel from city to city by playing cards in combinations of 1, 2, or 3. Each card has a method of transportation and a number of days that it takes. The object is to travel around the world quicker than everyone else. There are a couple of ways that can make you loose more days in the game. One is to be stuck with the detective at the end of your turn (loose 2 days). Another is for at least one person to make it back to London before your do (loose 1 day). The last way is for someone to draw one of two action cards (out of 20?) that immediately cause everyone to miss one or two days. The last way happened far too many times!

Jon raced out in the lead and stayed there. I decided to say in the rear of the pack. Once Jon made it back to London, I decided to put on a burst of speed and was able to stay the fastest traveller in the game.

Taj Mahal

I suggested this game and Marty jumped on the chance to play. This time I decided to go for an Elephant strategy. It would have worked well but for one critical time. On the third to the last city, I believe that I played one too many elephants (3) at the start. I won that city but on the next city I got into an Elephant battle with Marty that I lost. If I had kept my other double Elephant card I could have played 6 by the second turn and won. Unfortunately, Marty switched suites and out-Elephanted me. I went from 2nd to 2nd to last.

Oh well, still a fun game!

Zero

Marty could not grok my Zero playing style. For one hand, when it was my turn, I could not improve my hand. So rather than giving someone else a better card in the hope of improving my hand in the future, I knocked the table. Someone else knocked the table soon after that and the round was quickly over. Marty was shocked to learn that I had a score of over 20 for that hand! He says that the Gathering of Friends plays this game differently.

10 Days in the USA

For the last game of the night, Roxana played with us and chose this game. This was a somewhat quick and light game. Unfortunately, my travelling luck was weak tonight and I lost the game.